Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image pickup apparatus that is capable of bounce emission photographing, a control method therefor, and a storage medium storing a control program therefor, and in particular, relates to illumination control for illuminating and photographing an object.
Description of the Related Art
There is a known emission photographing method that makes a lighting device emit light toward a ceiling etc. to illuminate an object with diffuse reflection from the ceiling when the object is photographed. Hereinafter the method is referred to as bounce emission photographing. Since the bounce emission photographing illuminates an object indirectly with the light from the lighting device, the object is depicted with soft light.
When a bounce angle that shows an irradiation angle of diffuse reflection with which an object is irradiated is determined in the bounce emission photographing, an object distance between an image pickup apparatus and an object is measured (hereinafter referred to as object pre-emission distance measuring), and a ceiling distance between the object and the ceiling is measured (hereinafter referred to as ceiling pre-emission distance measuring). Then, the bounce angle is found according to the object distance and the ceiling distance.
There is an image pickup apparatus that photographs while irradiating an object with flash light indirectly when a face registered beforehand is recognized in the bounce emission photographing (see Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 2012-178666 (JP 2012-178666A)).
Incidentally, when an image pickup apparatus, which is provided with a pre-emission unit that pre-emits for a bounce emission photographing (it is also called a bounce operation) and an AF auxiliary light unit that emits auxiliary light for focusing control, performs a distance measuring operation by emitting the AF auxiliary light unit during the bounce operation, the following problem occurs.
The pre-emission during a charge-storage operation (AF storage operation) of an AF sensor in the distance measuring operation may saturate the AF sensor, which misses the focus in an AF operation. Moreover, if the AF auxiliary light unit emits the auxiliary light during the pre-emission of the lighting device for distance measuring, an error occurs in distance measuring data obtained by the pre-emission. As a result, an error may occur in setting of the bounce angle.
When a timing of the AF storage operation with the AF-auxiliary-light irradiation overlaps with a timing of the pre-emission of the lighting device in the image pickup apparatus disclosed in JP 2012-178666A, the light amount becomes excessively large, which causes an error in the distance measuring. Accordingly, errors occur in the focus setting and the bounce angle setting.